Week 24 in the Philippines - "you're the best!"

Baptism with Relief Society members that came to support! Sister April is Dave's wife and she works with us quite a bit (pink pants), Sister Fanny is the RS pres (red shirt), Sister Gasper takes in anyone who doesn't have their family here with them (green hat) and Sister Sprite is a policewoman, Stake YW pres, has the cutest little kids (striped shirt).   

             my puti(white) carabao and sister parada's itum(black) carabao hahahahahahaha

                                               the white one is way ugly! hahaha

Dear friends and fam!

Thank you so so so so much for the surprise Valentines package! I got it this week and it was the sweetest thing ever! I had no idea! Thank you so very much. I made sure to share the delicious chocolates and amazing snickerdoodles with Sister Parada, Sister Shakespeare and SIster Buban:) They all loved the treats as well! I also loved reading mom and dad's talks! SO good! We've been stressing the importance of paying tithing so much lately in our mission. Every meeting with our mission pres, he talks about it. Because lack of paying tithing is the biggest barrier keeping people from being able to go to the temple. Just two days ago, Sister Parada and I were teaching some investigators about the law of tithing and Sister Parada briefly shared the story about mom and dad!:) I had told her about your story with the immediate blessings that came from paying your tithing and so then she shared it in our lesson! It's so awesome that there is such a specific promise that God gives us for living the law of tithing. He promises that there will be food on your table everyday. That's such an applicable promise here.  Thank you so much for your testimonies of paying your tithing!

Also I'm super excited to use the object lessons you sent me!!

We had another baptism this week!!!! This area is so amazing. There are so many people ready and receptive to the gospel. This is truly the time to harvest, harvest, harvest. So the two that got baptized are Angelina and Maricel. Maricel is the mother of the little girl who got baptized on Christmas and Angelina is Maricel's mom. Their family is so awesome and they have such strong faith. Angelina's husband has already passed away and Maricel's husband left her or something like that, so they are superheroes and work so hard everyday to sell vegetables, raise Mariacel's two kids and even help support the families of Angelina's other children. They have such strong faith. Their house was completely destroyed during the typhoon and so the ward is helping rebuild it. It's been so awesome to teach them because actually Maricel was baptized before when she was like 14, but they lost her record. Back then, her mother listened as well but something kept her from being baptized. As soon as we started teaching her mom, it was so obvious that she was ready and this was her time to accept the gospel fully. So Maricel got rebaptized with her mother!

Last monday we had a FHE with this family who is seriously family to me, the Bulahan family. I love them so much. We call the dad, tatay (dad) and he calls us his children haha. They referred their niece to us so we've been teaching her and she's getting baptized this week! So we had a FHE with all of them and used mom's object lesson about repentance with the mud and stuff. Then we played some games and it was so funny. FIrst of all, they are all way comfortable around me now so they love making fun of me. It's pretty hilarious. It makes me feel like I'm at home:) hahahahaha We played this game where you have to make animal noises and they all thought it was the funniest thing ever because the animal noises I make are all different than theirs! 

Also yesterday, after church, they asked me to help get a ward choir number ready for our ward conference. It was so funny. Brother Dave, who you met when I skyped home, is in charge and asked for my help. He wants them to sing parts for the song "Families Can Be Together Forever". So I worked for quite a while trying to help the altos learn their part. It was so hard. I would run through it with them and then I when I would have the sopranos come and for all of them to sing, everyone would just belt it at the top of their lungs and it sounded awful. Sister Parada was just laughing the whole time. It didn't help that the stinkin F key doesn't work! So I had to keep playing the F for them an octave higher and it would always throw everyone off. Good times...:)

Yesterday was so awesome because one of our recent converts, Gregin, who moved to Iloilo, came to our ward for a visit! It was such a great surprise. He showed us a picture of the three elders teaching him now in Iloilo and he told us about how he has been sharing the gospel with his roommates. One of them asked him for a Book of Mormon and two of them listened to the missionaries with him. He's so awesome. The gospel is so great and missionary work is seriously the best.

I love you all so much! 

Keep safe! Be strong! God loves you so much and is always there for you, I promise:) 

Lots of love, Sister Malyon